excitement I haven’t felt since I was a teenager striking me like a sledgehammer. “Do you have a bed in here? Or a couch?” I’d settle for a dining room chair. Shoot, if he has a rug of decent thickness, I can be convinced to lay back on it. Or maybe he’ll volunteer to be the one to take the floor—either way, the wonders of being horizontal cannot be overstated right now. Sure, we could stay standing, but I have a suspicion that Lucan will be driven to go farther with me if we’re locked more intimately. And I’d like to go far. It’s so much harder to put on the brakes when a body is hot and hard over or under you. “Does the door lock?”
“Susan,” Lucan says. “What do you want to happen?”
“I want to seduce you,” I tell him honestly. I force my gaze to his face, a feat made easier by the fact that he’s pinpointed his shocked stare on my throat. “Just a little,” I add as reassurance.
His nostrils flare. “If you mean to… to use your wiles to convince me to want you, I’m already there,” he admits softly. “I want you like crazy.” He drags his eyes up to mine, and stares at me so hard my spine sings. “And I don’t mean for just now. I don’t mean for just sex. I want you now, and I’ll want you forever. And if you don’t believe that, we should stop.” He takes my hands in his, imploring. “If you don’t agree with that, if you don’t feel the same way for me—please stop.”
My heart, my locked-in-a-vault, freeze-branded with old pain until it grew numb to feeling anything heart—it stalls.
And then it soars.
I pull my hands free and catch his strong biceps, giving the rock-hard muscles a strong squeeze. “This is insane, but I want you too.” If ever asked to write down the qualities of my ideal man, I’d describe Lucan. Not just because I like him as a person, but because he’s everything I used to wish for, and more.
Life taught me my ideal man was fantasy. But here is Lucan in the flesh, everything I told myself a long time ago to stop hoping for, everything I haven’t let myself dream about. Although sure, he’s not exactly a man. He’s my werewolf.
He moves so fast I’m not expecting it. He swoops in and slams his lips over mine, kissing me hard, shockingly hard when he’s been so cautious.
It’s amazing. Our lips slide, my belly flutters, my hands find his shoulders and anchor there.
When he pulls back, he stares into my eyes, brow knitted, face earnest. “If Finn were here, pretty safe to say he’d be cheering, ‘about feckin’ time, you two pox puppies.’”
He’s mimicking his best friend’s accent so perfectly, I grin.
“Also,” he adds with a dose of self-deprecation that, for some reason, I find unbelievably attractive, “if he were here, he’d probably be butting into this moment to assure you that even though I haven’t said it yet, you should know that shifters mate for life, and werewolves in particular take our relationships very seriously.”
My heart screams, LUCAN IS THE BEST!
My head is still cautious. In fact, I nearly shake my head, the urge to deny that such a thing as an unbreakable matebond actually exists.
But I search Lucan’s face, seeing only a shining earnestness. Quietly, I absorb a zing of elation that he’s still not averting his gaze from mine. “I like the sound of this.”
“Finn will be very pleased,” Lucan drawls dryly.
I chuckle, the sound soft between us. Then I sober.
He senses it, because his arms, which are brushing low on my sides, tense. His gaze jerks away. “What's the difference between a magician's wand and a policeman's baton?”
If romantic music has been playing while we’ve been enjoying this moment, here’s where it screeches to a stop.
But… this is Lucan. I don’t even blink. I just smile at him harder than before. “I don’t know. What?”
He licks his lips, gaze darting up to mine before flitting away. The corner of his mouth twitches up. “One is used for cunning stunts…”
“Lucan,” I say, dropping my hands from his broad shoulders to cover my face. “Your jokes are terrible.”
He peels my fingers off my forehead and draws my hands down, fitting his thumbs in my palms as he informs me with sincerity, “They can get worse.” He peers at me, gauging my reaction. “What did the tired lobster say to